Retaining walls are well known. These structures may be built including mortar, or as introduced more recently constructed from mortarless construction. The mortarless construction includes building blocks of predetermined design, which may be stacked course upon course as a wall, including a cap stone. Most blocks provided in the prior art are limited in the number of degrees of freedom that they provide the professional landscaper when constructing retaining walls. This invention obviates this limitation.
Many block constructions provide for only the ability of the contractor to build a set back retaining wall. Within a retaining wall system, it would be beneficial to be able to produce wall structures, which are set back and or set forward in some portions thereof and vertical in other portions thereof. Furthermore, there is a requirement of building walls with smooth curves and corners without use of specific curved blocks. This is heretofore unknown. Furthermore, there is a need to manufacture a standard block, which can be used both as a building stone and a corner stone thus increasing the versatility of these blocks.
It would be advantageous to be able to provide a standard block which may not only be set back, set forward, or a combination thereof when appropriate, but, which also may be stacked vertically when appropriate, such as when creating steps to traverse an incline to thereby not alter the step lengths since this may not always be desirable or esthetically pleasing.
It would also be advantageous to be able to provide a standard block which may be altered in geometrical shape and length to allow for a number of configurations in construction while maintaining an aesthetically pleasing end result.
Further, quite often, cribbing is provided to reinforce or tie back a retaining wall back into the incline around which the retaining wall is being built. Although this is desirable, it is not always cost effective. Therefore, there is a need for a retaining wall, which does not require cribbing structures being assembled. There exists, therefore a need for a simple, easy to use number of components which an installer may install course upon course to prepare a reasonable number of attractive options for the building owner without limiting the number of alternatives for which recommendations may be made by the landscaper.
Examples of prior retaining wall structures and the blocks used to manufacture retaining walls may be found in the following patents. U.S. Pat. No. 1,872,522 teaches manufacturing of artificial stone bricks with splitting grooves which upon splitting creates an irregular surface for “stone like” effect. U.S. Pat. No. 5,598,679 teaches manufacturing of concrete blocks, which can be separated into smaller construction blocks and used for construction of retaining walls.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,367,615 teaches a substantially rectangular shaped block of cementitious material which has a metal reinforcing member extending there through and embedded therein. The reinforcing member has a height substantially equal to the height of the block and extends past one end of the block, terminating in an elongated T-shaped tongue. Adjacent to the other end of the block, the reinforcing member terminates in an elongated groove, slightly larger than but complementary to the shape of the tongue. In use, adjacent blocks are loosely but securely locked together by the cooperating tongues and grooves of the reinforcing members of the adjoining building blocks
U.S. Pat. No. 3,888,060 teaches interlocking blocks that are assembled in longitudinally staggered rows. The blocks are planar on their bottom side and include webs with interlocking protrusions on their upper side. The protrusions interact with the webs on adjacent rows of blocks to locate and hold the blocks in position.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,534,518 illustrates in FIG. 4 a corner block which may be utilized as seen in FIGS. 3 and 4. This block allows for interfitting with other blocks, including the projections illustrated.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,639,063 illustrates in FIG. 3 another corner block construction for a wall.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,668,435 illustrates in FIGS. 11 and 12 and the description related thereto a corner block construction.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,178,715 and 6,398,458 teach a standardized block construction having provided therewith the ability to form a retaining wall in whole or in part being substantially vertical, being substantially offset to the vertical, and being substantially set forward to the vertical.
The current invention provides further improvements to the prior art blocks.
It is therefore, a primary object of the invention to provide a standardized block construction which includes the ability to expose a smooth and/or a rough face at both faces of the block.
It is yet a further object of the invention to provide a standardized block for retaining wall systems, which include the necessary features to allow for in whole or in part setting course upon course in substantially vertical alignment, in set back alignment to the vertical, in set forward alignment to the vertical, positioning of the block at an angle or any combination thereof in a retaining wall system.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a standardized block construction which, in combination with the features of the block improves both lateral and longitudinal stability of the block when it is placed course upon a course to form a structure, such as a retaining wall.
It is yet a further object of the invention to provide a standardized block which may serve as a corner block, preferably which may be utilized as a left-hand or a right-hand corner block.
It is yet a further object of the invention to provide a standardized block which may be positioned in parallel, perpendicular or angled positioned relatively to the below positioned block.
It is yet a further object of the invention to provide a block which may be separated at one of the corners at substantially a 45°.
It is yet a further object of the invention to provide a retaining wall system, including the standardized block of the present invention, which provides when stacked course upon course with one another, an esthetically pleasing retaining wall system.
Further and other objects of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art when considering the following summary of the invention, and the more detailed description of the preferred embodiments illustrated herein.